Metro Denver’s housing market has roared back to life with an early spring rush characterized by multiple offers, low inventory and — in some cases — homes going under contract within 24 hours of being listed. “It’s a frenzy out there,” said Ty Dokken, the new board president of Denver-based Metro Brokers Inc.”It’s one of the hottest sellers’ markets I’ve seen in the last 10 years.”

A quick market makes for extremely motivated buyers, he said, adding that they have to say yes quickly or risk losing the deal.

After the housing bubble burst in 2007, the real estate market flat-lined for a period, then finally started picking up steam a year ago. But the sudden rush has nonetheless caught many buyers and sellers off-guard.

“Two years ago, buyers were dictating to sellers,” said Michelle Ackerman, Redfin‘s managing broker for the Denver metro area. “Today, it’s the sellers who are dictating terms. We’re seeing multiple bid offerings all over the metro area.”

The most recent S&P/Case-Shiller home-prices index showed that prices in the Denver metro area rose 9.2 percent in January compared with January 2012. Nationally, the year-over-year gain was 8.1 percent — the largest increase since the summer of 2006.

Denver has now experienced 13 straight months of year-over-year gains, following 18 months of declines.

Housing inventory — or, more specifically, a lack of it — is the driving force behind the frenzied market.

Just 6,786 single-family homes and condos were listed for sale in February, down 32.7 percent from a year ago and the lowest since 1985, according to real-estate analyst Gary Bauer.

Demand has gone up as buyers feel more confident both in the housing market and in the overall economy. Mortgage rates, meanwhile, are holding near historic lows, giving buyers an extra jolt of motivation.

“There’s a lot of incentive for people to lock in these low rates,” said Tom Thibodeau, professor of finance and academic director of the University of Colorado’s Real Estate Center. “Where else can you get that kind of certainty in your liabilities?”

Also, apartment rents continue to rise, making the prospect of homeownership more appealing to many renters.

But there are complicating factors on the supply side of the equation. New-home construction dropped dramatically during the economic downturn and hasn’t fully recovered.

“There’s really not much of a pipeline that is out on the market and ready to be sold,” Thibodeau said.

Also, negative equity, while improving, still is prevalent, with 20 percent of the households with a mortgage in the Denver area owing more than their homes are worth.

“That 20 percent is not going to enter the market,” he said. “Unless these people are willing to go to the closing and write a check, they’re not going to sell.”

Given those conditions, it’s not surprising that buyers feel pressured to move quickly.

Doug Richesin, a physician, recently purchased a home in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood, putting the home under contract within 24 hours of it going on the market.

Working with Redfin’s Ackerman, Richesin was able to view the property before it was listed.

“We really liked it,” he said, “and with interest rates where they were — and the swiftness at which many homes were coming off the market — we thought it would be in our best interest to aggressively put in an offer.”

Richesin, who lives with his wife, Larissa, and their 11-month-old son, Henry, said it “would have been nicer to have had a more leisurely time looking at more houses, but we knew we had to act fast.”

Situations such as Richesin’s have prompted leaders at Redfin to coin a term for homes that go under contract within 24 hours of being listed. The company began tracking so-called “flash sales.”

Over the last five months, Denver ranked ninth on Redfin’s list of the most flash sales in the country, with 115 homes selling within 24 hours.

Thibodeau said such quick sales weren’t uncommon before the bubble burst.

“It’s hard to put a value judgment on whether they’re good or bad,” he said. “But I can understand the economic reasons.”

Real estate brokers say technology, particularly mobile devices, is also helping to speed up the process.

Seattle-based Redfin uses instant alerts to notify users via e-mail or smartphone that a home meeting their search criteria has come on the market.

Zillow offers a program called “Make Me Move,” which allows would-be sellers to tell others the price they’d be willing to sell their home for, without actually putting it on the market.

Real estate brokers say they’re responding to the inventory shortage in various ways.

“If I have a buyer interested in a particular neighborhood,” he says, “I’ll mail letters ahead of time, asking homeowners in the area if they are interested in selling. If they are, I tell them I’ll be knocking on their door, asking if we can look at their house.”

Metro Brokers’ Dokken does the same thing.

And while the super-heated market has been good for sellers, Redfin agent Ilona Botton sees a lot of fear and frustration among prospective buyers.

“If you look at the statistics, we don’t have any more potential buyers than normal. It’s just that we don’t have any houses to sell them. So that makes things pretty competitive,” she said.

Her clients sometimes get frustrated and decide to continue renting or stay in their current home. Others feel compelled to overbid on properties because they’re afraid they’re not going to find a house.

“We see a lot of overbidding in Park Hill,” she said, “because it’s a highly desirable area.”

As for sellers, Botton said some are overpricing their homes, hoping to take advantage of the surging market. Others are waiting for even higher prices in the future.

Prospective buyer Lisa Nguyen, who has looked at 15 to 20 homes, offered an all-too-familiar lament: “There just haven’t been very many houses come on the market. And the ones that do come on the market, they tend to go so quickly.”

John Mossman: 303-954-1479, jmossman@denverpost.com

24-hour market

The 15 real estate markets across the U.S. with the most “flash sales” recorded in the last five months, as compiled by Redfin. Flash sales are defined as homes going under contract within 24 hours:

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